In order to deploy multiple operating systems running various applications, several partitions are needed. In order to alleviate the need for multiple servers to house these operating systems and applications, logical partitions (LPAR) of a single server can be used. The LPAR uses a hypervisor for its operations and to communicate with other LPARs within the same Server Central Electronics Complex (CEC). A CEC is a specialized device that performs all of the high-speed computing associated with a computer. A hypervisor is a virtualization platform that allows multiple operating systems to run on a host computer at the same time in virtual machines. The hypervisor can be a firmware module that sits on top of the physical hardware resources. It provides the function of administering resource management and controlling partition access to the hardware resources.
The problem is that in the current partitioning scheme, there is no framework to export unique operating system features to the application running on different operating systems. Current solutions allow for lending computer hardware resources into logical partitions, running multiple instances of operating systems on a single multiprocessor system, and grouping LPARs to form one entity where shared resources are emulated to provide each partition a separate copy of the shared resource. However, no solution exists for the problem of exporting unique operating system features of one LPAR to the applications running on a different LPAR. This problem could arise from a case where an operating system needs to be upgraded to the latest version. However, a tested application on the current operating system version is not to be disturbed. In this case, there would be a need to create another partition with the latest operating system release and use the features of this new operating system release without disturbing the current environment.